Softly Grow the Poppies (15 page)

The soldiers, who looked forward to his visits, adored him. Sister argued that such a young child should not be subjected to some of the sights on the wards but he was too young to realise the implications of men without limbs, the men who handled him as though he were made of porcelain, those who were blinded, their faces quite grotesque. Rose argued that it gave them a feeling almost of normalcy. The sound of his infant babbling, his laughter, his feet in their new shoes of which he was inordinately proud as he toddled along the ward, was a memory of happy times before the war.

No one came near the bedroom that had once been Harry’s own. It was placed at the corner of the house with a sharp bend to navigate and was designated too awkward to use as a ward. Rose had helped Harry into a long bathtub in front of the fire and gently scrubbed the filth of the trenches from his thin body, washing his hair and every inch of him, making him groan despite his exhaustion as she worked her soapy fingers about his male organ which stood out from the plentiful mass of dark pubic hair. It did not last long, this evidence of his desire, of his manhood. He was simply incapable of lovemaking in his state and when she had dried him and rubbed his dark, curling hair he had sunk into the bed in which he had slept all his boyhood and young manhood and she watched him fall into the bottomless pit of sleep he desperately needed. He had five days’ leave and when he was rested she would climb into bed with him, as naked as he, and bring him back from the horror he had known.

He slept for thirty-six hours. She left him now and then to check on Will and to do the rounds of the wards where all the soldiers knew her man had come home and she would be absent for a while. They did not begrudge it to her, or him. He was a soldier, as they were, and had suffered what they had though he had no wounds to show for it.

‘Us’ll keep an eye on’t babby, Miss Rose,’ they told her. Will had become a kind of symbol of hope to these poor, pitiful wrecks whose own lives, even if they did not return to the front, would never be the same again.

When Harry awoke she fed him herself, making him eat the good, nourishing broths, soups, and custards that Nessie made for him and slowly though still thin he began to look like the man who had left her over a year ago and in his eyes was a look that asked something of her. She knew what it was and when she had fed him and returned the tray to the kitchen she went upstairs, telling Dolly she did not want the captain disturbed.

Dolly watched her go sadly for there were so many men longing for what Rose was about to give Harry and that was a respite from the horrors they had seen in the trenches. She sighed and exchanged a sympathetic smile with Nessie. Both were knitting, socks, balaclavas, mittens, scarves, anything to keep their men warm in the coming winter. They had both come to work at Summer Place because that was where they were needed but with Beechworth destined to be the next house authorised as a hospital who knew where they would end up? Wherever two elderly ladies could do the most good. Not much except be there for the ones who cared for the men in the beds. The maimed and blinded, the mutilated and damaged in their poor heads and minds that could literally take no more. For nearly two years these men had been subjected to terrors not just of possible death, which in many ways was better than the wounds that crippled them for life, but of the loss of their innocence, their faith in the men who led them.

‘Let’s hope there’ll not be another babby without a father,’ Dolly murmured and a sad tear ran down her cheek, finding its way along a wrinkle that ran from the corner of her eye to her chin.

‘Miss Rose loves that there man, Dolly, and will give ’im summat ter take back ter that ’ell ’e come from.’

He watched her from the bed, his need of her, now that he had the strength to manage it, very obvious in the bulge under the clean sheets she and Dolly had put him between that morning. His face was a blessing to her for she knew that she would send him back with the remembrance of her in his arms and their loving which she prayed would heal his wounded soul. Though he was whole, as so many weren’t, his mind was not, for in it were pictures of the young, baby-faced officers straight from school who had never been with a woman and now never would for they had had their genitals blown off; men who wandered the trenches calling for ‘Tich’ or ‘Jimmy’ or, worse than anything, ‘Mummy’ or ‘Nanny’; men who held their blown-off leg in their hands, begging for someone to sew it back on; men screaming as they were caught in the barbed wire, cruelly and for ever entangled until some compassionate pal put a bullet in them. The casualties flowed back across the Channel and some flowed the other way, returning to the front. The smell of gangrene and perhaps the worse sight, not remarked on but heartbreaking just the same, the surgeons who did their best but wept at the sheer waste of it all.

These images were tumbling about in his head but the sight of Rose, his lovely Rose, clean,
whole
, swept them all away as she came into his arms and held him as he, unable to help himself, wept too. Then with her hands and her mouth and the smell of her in his nostrils, it all vanished and rapture came, sweeping them both up on its wave and taking them to a shore where peace was. They slept then but during that night they loved again and again, slept and loved and mended Harry Summers. The man with half a face blown away was himself no more than a misty sorrow in Harry’s mind and the words he had spoken to him, the smile he had given and the man’s gratitude as Harry looked him straight in the face and did not flinch.

‘Thank you, sir,’ the man had mumbled through the hole in what was left of his face. All this had tortured him for the months he had borne it but now he knew he could deal with it which sounded hard but was merely an acceptance of life, and death. He wanted Rose to be here when he got back. He had lost his brother and, more than likely, his brother’s wife who gallantly and probably foolishly roamed the battlefields looking for Charlie, but here was his saviour in his arms. Their loving seemed to strengthen him and where she had been the dominant one in their desire he now began to make demands of her that had not been in his power in the beginning.

‘I love you, I have never stopped loving you,’ laying a hard hand against her cheek. ‘My heart rises when I see you and my love is as constant as the heavens. Do you . . .?’

‘I have waited for this ever since that day,’ lifting her hips to accommodate his masculine need.

‘Which?’

‘The day at the station. Oh God, I did not know this would ever come . . .’

‘This . . .’ His body moved slowly, slowly in and out, then his pace quickened.

‘Let me help you,’ for she was afraid he was not strong enough for such a pounding energy.

‘I need no help. You love me?’

‘Yes, oh yes . . . this is . . . I am ready to scream. Dolly will . . .’

‘To hell with Dolly. I need this, you know that . . .’

‘I am yours to do with . . .’

‘This?’

‘Yes . . . yes . . . yes, my darling heart. I love you, never leave me . . .’

And so she shouted her love, her passion for this man – yelled, he told her later as he cradled her in his arms. Their climax had been an explosion of love held in and now given free range. She was drowsy with it now but he watched the light slowly beginning to seep round the edge of the curtains and the joy that had been shared with her, just for a moment, made his heart ache for it was to end this day. He felt the desolation run through him, then, like a dog just come from the water, he shook himself; had he not just been given what all the men he served with yearned for. Love! Yes and more than that because he knew this woman would wait for him and the next leave he had they would be married.

When she woke she found him leaning on his elbow looking down into her face. She put her hand on his cheek. ‘Such love I have. I am filled with it.’

‘I did my best,’ he said, grinning.

‘Was it . . .?’ then had no need to continue for he turned her towards him and silently, gently, his lips fastened on her nipple and she rose to meet him and he loved her for what he knew would be the last time on this leave.

His uniform had been cleaned and pressed and hung on the wardrobe door in readiness for his departure. From the bed she watched him and didn’t know how she could bear it. She had only just found him.
I have only just found him
, to an uncaring God yet he was to go and her heart was breaking, for would she ever see him again and if she did would he be whole and sane as he was now?

‘I told you I had seen Alice,’ he said abruptly and she felt ashamed as in her new-found happiness she had forgotten. She sat up and the sheet fell away from her and his eyes went to the sweet roundness and fullness of her breast.

‘Sweetheart, don’t do that or I shall never . . .’

She sighed since she knew what he meant. ‘Tell me about Alice.’

‘She was standing outside the hospital and each time an ambulance drew up she accosted those who were able to speak. She was off duty but she would not rest. “Are any of you men from the Liverpool Regiment?” she was asking and from everyone there was either silence or a shake of an anguished head. Then someone – perhaps a lad from around Old Swan or West Derby – said he was but the regiment had lost so many men those who were left had been integrated into other battalions.

‘“Was yer lookin’ fer someone, queen?” he asked sympathetically, despite his own troubles, doing his best to raise his head from the stretcher.

‘“Captain Charlie Summers of the 19th Battalion, King’s Liverpool Regiment,” she replied, moving to the stretcher and taking hold of the man’s hand. “Do you know him? He has been missing for a year or more.”’

Harry sighed and stared out at the garden. ‘They all knew her, of course, for she had become famous. Mad, they thought her, but nevertheless they all held her in great esteem. She was not shirking her duties and drove her ambulance wherever it was needed and gave great comfort to the men she brought to the hospital but she cried when I spoke to her. She has the strength of a lion. Who was it said, “I have the body of a weak and feeble woman but the heart of a lion,” – or something like that? A queen, I think, and that is Alice.’ He fell to musing as he buttoned his immaculate khaki shirt. ‘That day when Charlie left, you remember when Lady wouldn’t get on the train, she wept and was so fragile, so wilting, like a flower dragged from the soil but now I believe if they gave her the leadership of the armies she would have this bloody lot sorted out in no time. She swears she will not come home until she has found Charlie or seen his body, which is impossible. She was going to start on the prisoner-of-war camps, someone told me, which is madness.’

‘I know how she feels now, Harry. If you were to—’

‘Don’t,’ he said sharply but she would not be stopped.

‘I would do as she is doing. I know it is ridiculous. If every woman who lost her man were to do what Alice is doing there would be chaos but . . .’

He dropped on to his knees beside the bed, running his fingers through her hair, stroking her cheek and neck and, inevitably, the peached peak of her white breast. They could both feel the hot blood begin again and hastily he kissed her, a light kiss, then stood up and strode from the room. She knew he was going to the nursery where young Will Summers was having his breakfast. He would report it all back to Alice if he saw her again and even present her with a photograph one of the men had taken of Will. It might persuade her to come home.

The shelling had eased off a lot when she spotted two khaki figures stumbling towards her about fifty yards away. She had a revolver one of the officers had given her, saying he hoped she never had to use it but better to be safe than sorry. It remained in her pocket and had never been used. She had smiled at the picture of herself shooting a fellow human being but the two soldiers seemed unaware of her and just kept walking.
They were Germans
. Both of them had wounds, at least they were bleeding, or there was blood on them though she could not tell from where.

‘Madam,’ one of them said, an officer by the look of him. ‘You are English.’

‘Yes, I am, but what are you—’

‘I have brought my corporal to you, to your hospital which I know is near. He is hurt. I have many hurt but this one is my brother.’

‘Your brother!’

‘
Ja
. Forgive me, but I must get back to my men. They are . . . I must get back to them but I could not leave Erich, you understand?’

‘Well, no. I am—’

‘The nearest hospital is . . . German hospital is several miles away. It is in a prisoner-of-war camp where there are many Englishmen: soldiers, prisoners. One of them was helped by a German doctor. He had no papers but he is with his own now. I thought since a German doctor tended him one of yours might do the same for Erich.’

He laid his brother down in the bit of grass that had first attracted her to the place. There were even wild flowers. After clicking his heels and saluting with great politeness, the officer strode away and disappeared into the distance from where sounds of gunfire could be heard.

Alice looked down at the young corporal in astonishment then up again to where the officer had gone. A small crowd of soldiers had gathered round her, ready to stick their bayonets into the supine figure on the ground but with a sharp word from her they drew back. They all knew or had heard of the mad woman who searched for her husband and would not cross her for the world. She was on a par with an angel to them for not only did she work alongside them she was also a mystical being from another world, or so they believed.

Doing as she ordered, they made a rough stretcher and carried the young wounded soldier back to the hospital.

T
hey had more warning – and help – this time when Beechworth opened its doors to the pitiful dregs of humanity who were once men, soldiers who had answered the call and paid heavily for their patriotism. The suffering victims had had nothing in the way of medical care bar the hastily slapped-on dressings at the dressing station hundred of miles away. Their faces were grey with pain but this time Rose and her helpers had everything ready, her home scrubbed from attic to cellars, beds erected, doctors at the ready with a staff of nurses and VADs, some of them borrowed from Summer Place. The men were quiet as though the little bit of life that had been theirs at the beginning of their journey from the front had slowly drained away from them as time moved on. Ambulance, train, boat, train, ambulance: hours had passed and now they were lifted gently from the fleet of ambulances by the volunteer stretcher-bearers who placed them in the beds they had been designated. Doctors and nurses had travelled with them, two of them, and Dr Cartwright from Summer Place, reading the labels that had been tied on to the men, different colours denoting the severity of their wounds, inspected them briefly then directed them to their place in what Rose thought of as a queue, the worst of them first though how these medical men could make such a decision was beyond her understanding. Two men, almost unrecognisable as men so wrapped about were they in various pieces of what looked like rags from the bone yard in Old Swan, were found to be dead, their blood hiding their horrific wounds so that they had probably been dead for hours without anyone noticing.